KARACHI, Sept 14: Pakistan may expect some F-16s from the US while delivery of two of the six C-130s is expected in December. This was stated by the air force chief Air Marshall Kaleem Sadat in a briefing at the Ideas 2004 exhibition of military hardware here on Tuesday.

He said that Pakistan had asked for 70 F-16s but the Americans had indicated that they might settle for 18 but that might happen after the US Presidential elections. Referring to the difficulties Pakistan had to face due to stringent political decisions by the US administration, he said that the Pakistan Air Force was looking for various options to meet its high-tech requirements.

He said that Swedish Griffin and China's F-10 remained leading contenders. "Whichever of these aircraft is selected, it will meet our high-tech requirements," he said.

On the American decision to stop the supply of F-16s, the air chief said that whenever he met US officials, he told them that the public opinion in Pakistan believed that the US wanted to keep Pakistan weak. "They have now realized it," he said.

He announced that by December 2006, serial production of JF-17 aircraft would commence after the prototypes had been put to rigorous tests by both Pakistani and Chinese pilots.

The medium technology JF-17 would replace the existing fleet of Mirage III and V, A5 and F-7. Answering a question, he said that the PAF had flown some missions against terrorist targets in South Waziristan and maintained that presence of Americans at some airfields in Pakistan was "in no way" affecting PAF's deployment and mobility. He said that the Americans were perhaps contemplating to move to Central Asia.

He expressed concern over Indo-Israeli cooperation, but said that it could not be objected to because it was a transaction between two sovereign countries. Earlier, Group Captain Ijaz, general manager marketing of the Integrated Defence System, spoke about various projects, especially the unmanned aerial vehicles which were increasingly becoming important tool of intelligence gathering and engagements.

In this context, he gave details of the NR-1 tactical range UAV system and NR-2 which has a speed of 180 kms/hr and a range of 250 kms and endurance of six to seven hours.

Vector had an effective range of more than 250 kms and endurance of more than four hours while Hornet with more than 350 kms ph speed with 12,000 feet ceiling could be effective in border monitoring requirements. He also unfolded details about air delivered weapons, military batteries and other products of the organization.